In this podcast, Dr. Justin Marchegianiand Evan Brand talk about chronic fatigue solutions. We review in-depth information on chronic fatigue syndrome including its causes, symptoms, diagnosis, and treatments. Many people who have chronic fatigue tend to have issues with either mitochondrial function, thyroid imbalance or adrenal imbalances. Many times these issues can be driven by hidden gut stress like infection or food allergens. Full transcript is available inside this post.

In this episode, we will cover:

16:16 Sleep Pattern and Chronic Fatigue Relationship

26:45 Gut Component of Chronic Fatigue

19:40Metabolic Side of Energy and Chronic Fatigue.

35:00 Correlation Between Fluoridation and Hypothyroidism

48:20 Infections Aggravate Chronic Fatigue

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And we are live! Evan, how are we doing, man? It’s a nice little magical Monday here.

Evan Brand: Magical Monday.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: [crosstalk] How are you doing, man?

Evan Brand: I feel good. I feel really good. The heat index has been like over a hundred here. I don’t know if you watched the weather at all but it’s like the hottest part of the country. We’re like hotter than Texas almost. It’s nuts.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I mean, right now dude, I got the apple kind of weather screenshot. My wife put it on her Facebook, and it was like– for the next week, it’s a low of a hundred to a hundred and six during the day. So, pretty darn crazy. Very hot, so we’re inside. Actually, I’d been jumping on the water today in like two hours.

Evan Brand: Good.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Do a little boat training things. I’m excited about that. This weekend was good. Didn’t go on the boat this weekend, but I look forward to go on it this week.

Evan Brand: Cool. Yeah, people have a misconception about Texas being like a desert, but Austin is– there is humidity plus that hundred degrees. That’s a scorcher.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. That is– it’s hot for sure, but uh– again, most of the year it’s great. That’s my kind of Texas secret.

Evan Brand: That’s true.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I got a little workout this morning. Got up. Did some PK, you know, sprinting. Sprint some of my rower, some kettle bells, some push-ups, some rows, some good twist ball, crunches and such. I’m feeling good. I’m ready to go. How about yourself, man?

Evan Brand: Yeah. I rode the mountain bike actually this morning. I’m trying to make it a morning ritual. Typically, I’m doing some good morning sunlight exposure as much skin as I can, and kind of gazing in the direction of the sun. But then I thought, “Why not just add exercise on top of it.” So, I’ve been hitting the mountain bike. Probably doing just a mile or two, enough into intense but my brain worked so much better with morning exercise, morning light. So, on the topic that we’re chatting about today of Chronic Fatigue, that’s one of the best strategies, I believe, as some type of morning exercise. If you’re not too fatigued, and you’re able to do even just a walking routine, or stretching, or morning Yoga, plus sunlight, that’s like a one-two punch combo.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I mean, I have a little home gym at my house so I get up and I’m trying to do a little bit of 15 minutes– 15 to 30 minutes of exercise as soon as I get up. Close to the 30 is ideal. My wife tries to just get up. She’s eight months pregnant right now, so she just tries to get up and walk the dog for 30 minutes or so before it gets really hot. But yeah, exercise is really important. If you look at a lot of these higher-level CEOs, right. They talk about exercises really being a benefit on the cognitive side, right? Helps decompress stress. Helps them just feel better, less anxious, make better decisions throughout the day. So, exercise provides some awesome components, especially on the cognitive side. It’s very cool.

Evan Brand: Yeah. the problem is when we’re talking about the chronic fatigue, so many people they’re so tired that they can’t exercise. So, it’s really tough to give them that– that first little bump of energy. So, maybe we’ll chat about that today, you know. How do you actually get started with exercise when you’ve been sedentary for so long? It could be a struggle but there are options.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I mean, first things first, is find your exercise tolerance. For the most part, many people can walk at least, right? Are they gonna at least do some walking, gentle walking, or they can at least, you know, let’s say that’s too much, they can probably at least do some gentle, like, Tai Chi moves, right? So that’s – there’s always a way that you can move a little bit, right? Whether it’s walking or even uhm – on the Tai Chi side, or even Yoga side, right? So, there’s always some level of movement you can do. Ideally, pushing people to get on to the resistance training side’s gonna be ideal. And even the burst training side. If you’re older and you’re not used to that kind of compression in your joints, utilizing some kind of elliptical or rower or bike, or something stationary, where you’re not getting the impact. But you can at least go out to all out intensity and then relax– all out intensity and then relax, that’s important for the mitochondria and for the muscles. And also, doing some resistance training is gonna be helpful because– again, like, things like walking, they aren’t really gonna build much muscle. I mean, you’ll burn fat, it’s good to move, but you’re not gonna be putting on a lot of muscle on walking. So, you get that the muscle building effects, and you get the higher growth hormone effects with the resistance training and with the burst. So, that’s really important.

Evan Brand: Now, did you cancel your gym membership? Do you still go over there now that you got the home gym setup or do you just use the home as a compliment?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I mean, I do both. I mean, the gym membership for me is like 19 bucks a month so it’s just nice to still have that because I can get out of the house maybe once to twice a week just to have a different change of scenery. As you know, when you work from home, it’s like– ah you don’t really get out much, right?

Evan Brand: Right.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Like you’re stuck, so just an excuse to get out. But I still have the home gym, which is great. I got to start shooting some more videos from there on some of the exercise stuff. I think that’s important. That’s kind of fun too. So, look for that coming soon. And then, what else is on your mind? I mean, let’s dive in if you’re ready.

Evan Brand: Yeah, yeah, so uhm – and you can use your wife, as your videographer for your exercise videos. People would love them on the channel, man. I don’t think you’ve done any exercise videos yet, have you?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: No. No, I haven’t, but just simple stuff, right? Simple– you know, I kind of like the Pulse Check mind set. Break it down into foundational movement patterns, right. Push-pull– you know, push, pull, bend, lunge, squat, twist, walk, sprint, right? Those were like your seven kinds of primal movements in it. Any exercise you can think of, for the most part, you can fit into that type of seven primal movement pattern, and then from there you can, you know, you can have it. You can do it with weights. You can do it with cables. You can do it with TRX. You can do it with Swiss balls and body weight. And you can implement and shift according to what you need. And also– you know, if you’re on a budget– I mean, TRX, swiss balls, and push-up bars, maybe a couple of dumbbells, I mean, you got like pretty much a full body facility for yourself.

Evan Brand: Yeah, for probably less than 200 bucks.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. A couple hundred bucks, man, and you got a great gym.

Evan Brand: So, let’s chat about chronic fatigue. I mean…

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Evan Brand: …what’s your ancestral take on this? I mean, do you believe a chronic fatigue would have existed in ancient times?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, I think, ancient time-wise – I mean, look at the stress, right? Stress was punctuated. It was very short term, right? It was a tiger chase, whether you live or you die, right? It wasn’t this chronic thing where you got a mortgage, you got all these different things you have to do to uhm– you know, to survive so to speak. You have to get your food. You have to have your water. You know, a shelter over yourself, you kill an animal, and then, for the most part, you’re resting, you’re relaxing all day. Well today, we have bills, mortgage, we have ki– and then look at today, right? Kids are kind of a liability today. I mean, look how much they cost to feed, schooling, college, where in those days, like, kids were a massive asset. Like, you want to have as many kids as possible, so they can go hunt with you or help out around the house. I mean, it depends how far back you want to go, right? You want to go farming days, right. My family were farmers like a hundred years ago. So, they have…

Evan Brand: Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: …you know, seven, eight, nine, ten kids. And then, we’re all working on the farm every day. So, they were a massive asset to the family. Today, kids are kind of a, you know, a liability, right?

Evan Brand: Yeah. I mean, you make a great point. My great grandparents – there’s old picture – the average was like 16 kids.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, yeah. I mean, they were a massive asset. They help the family out. Today, they’re a stressor. Right? You know there’s no reason why you can’t make your kid an asset. You know, give him some chores to do around the house and be a team player, right? But it’s– but uhm – you know, it takes energy and parenting to do that. So, you got to. We got to look at what we can do now to decrease stress. Because after food needs are met, you know, from an anthropological perspective. Food, shelter, hydration, I mean, typically have much to worry about after that. We have a lot more we worry about in our life: traffic, uhm – everything, right? So, looking at where we’re at now, we know the adrenal glands play a vital role because they kind of are the interplay with our sympathetic nervous system, so we get that spider tingling sense, right? Stress levels go high. That’s our sympathetic nervous system in there for always in fight-or-flight, then that’s gonna really play a game on our adrenal glands. Could look at Robert Sapolsky’s book. He’s the stress physiologist out of Stanford. It’s ‘Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers”? And he just talks about how animals – I mean, it’s like, this Zebra could literally be running from a lion, right? The lion jumps on its back, like, takes on huge chunk out of its back up but the Zebra gets away so to speak. And then you see the Zebra an hour ago– an hour later, just grazing on some grass, like nothing happened, right? Could is this punctuated, even though half of its– you know, back side’s gone. It’s like, “Okay. No big deal.” Like, it’s this fight-or-flight response. It’s either off or on, where we kind of sit into this micro off-on, micro off-on all day long from work stress, from relationship stress, and then also food stress, right? I think food stress is probably one of the biggest stressors that keeps our fight-or-flight on. Just eating a lot of refined crap and sugar makes this blood sugar go up and down, up and down, up and down, which then puts a toll on the adrenals. And then also, when you’re stressed, you’re actually burning up more nutrition, right? You’re going through more B Vitamins, you’re going through more amino acids, you’re going through more minerals, Magnesium – those kinds of things. But then, when you’re stressed, what also happens is you tend to crave more sugary sweet foods. So, you see this kind of vicious cycle that happens? Stress issues, more Cortisol, more B vitamins, more Magnesium, but also more cravings for the bad stuff, right? Alcohol, refined sugar, but then, all those foods, they don’t contain all of the nutrients that you’re burning up at higher levels. So, you see that kind of – that little kind of vicious cycle you get into?

Evan Brand: Oh yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: More stress, more nutrient issues, but then you crave the food that actually contain none of what you need. And actually, to take those foods in, you actually create more deficiencies. When you run those things through your glycolysis and through your Krebs cycle, it actually takes nutrients to metabolize those things. That’s why alcoholics are so notorious for having B Vitamin deficiencies because of the fact, it takes B vitamins to process the sugar and alcohol. So you can actually create more deficiencies by eating things that have zero nutrition. But you create even more than that because you don’t get it in. But also, you have to process that sugar with other nutrition that’s not there, right?

Evan Brand: Yeah. Your gas tank’s already gone empty and you’re trying to push the gas pedal even more. You made a great point about this because many people when they talk about stress, they say, “I’m not stressed. I don’t feel stressed.” That’s like, when you don’t necessarily have to feel the stress, and you might not feel the stress. This could be, all your nervous system. This is your gut. This is your pancreas you’re talking about with the Insulin surges. This is the liver stress, where you’ve got clogged up detox pathways. You’re not actually replenishing your Vitamin C, which every time we look at an organics, I know I see nine out of every ten people…

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Evan Brand: …in the organics. Their Vitamin C is completely bottomed out. And, for me, I think it’s just the afterburners. You know, in the jet fighter. You can’t use the afterburners forever. You can turn them on, but it’s not designed for permanent use, and that’s kind of us in the modern world. And then also, the workload too. It has increased, which, you know, some people, maybe they can’t change that, but I believe a lot of people – they’ll tell me that they’re going on a vacation but they’ll still bring the iPad or the tablet or the computer with them to continue working. And so, even when we’re paying for a vacation, we’re still not letting that nervous system ever fully kind of hit the reset button. So, you get back home, and you still feel just as stressed, if not more stressed, because you left your home environment and you just worked the whole time. And then, obviously, there’s the deeper issues that will get into today as well. So, I’m gonna start off, since you already hit on the diet…

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Evan Brand: …piece. Let’s just start off with talking about a Vegan diet as a cause of fatigue, or specifically chronic fatigue. We’ve hit on Vegan diet so much, and I believe maybe, maybe, maybe you could do it right if you just tried extremely hard. You could survive. Could you ever thrive? I don’t know. I don’t know in a completely Vegan. Maybe vegetarian. We’ve hit on this. I won’t beat the drum too hard, but ideally, if you’re getting your good animal proteins that are pasteurized, you’ve got your digestion actually working, you’re gonna get a lot more minerals, trace nutrients. You’re gonna get your eye Iron, which are gonna help to prevent Anemias, which is also on our list of causes of Chronic Fatigue. You know, a lot of times, Vegans are gonna show up on their blood work with different type of Anemias. And then, when you and I run blood work for thyroid, a lot of times we’ll see thyroid issues too. Like elevated reverse T3, which is like the blank bullet, for people listening, “You’ve got your revolver but you’ve got some blank bullets in there.” Because you run a Vegan diet, the body thinks it’s starving to death. So, it says, “Well, Evan, I don’t know when you’re gonna eat, so I might as well hold on to as much body fat as I can. This is why, so many Vegans, you’ll see they’re actually overweight. And it’s like, “Wow. You’re living on vegetables but you’re still overweight. What’s going on?” A lot of times, this whole cascade: the adrenals, the thyroid, the fat storage, the malabsorption issues, all the beans and digestive problems that they’re experiencing. This is like another vicious cycle that could be kind of similar to the standard American diet cycle, you mentioned.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally, and now, when you look at Vegans, right? The people that do best on Vegan or vegetarian diet, are the ones that are going to be the least Insulin-resistant. So, let me say in another way. People that are the most Insulin-sensitive, right, their Insulin levels, their Insulin secretions are in a good place, right?

Evan Brand: They do best.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And then, they do the best because, typically, Vegans vegetarians, they’re gonna be consuming Carbohydrates at 300-400 grams a day, minimum. Minimum just because that’s what it takes if you’re gonna get the protein in, and you’re combining proteins with the legumes and rice and other things like that. You’re gonna be getting a whole bunch of starch in, so your carbohydrates will be at anywhere between 60-70 percent per day on average, if you are a Vegan. Now, also, if you try to do it the – if you’re trying to keep the carbs down as a Vegan, then you typically, are gonna be relying on a lot more protein powders. You’ll be doing rice protein, hemp protein, pea protein, and you’ll probably be having to add in a lot of good fats too, like, you know, nuts, seeds, avocado, MCT Oil, Coconut Oil, Olive Oil. So, you’ll have to really up the fats. And if you can handle the nuts and seeds, they’ll also be really good, but the you’ll also have to get a lot of the protein powders up. And you’ll probably still need, as an insurance policy, a sublingual B12 to ensure that you’re not getting Anemic in any way. So, that’s kind of the big thing, and if you don’t do it that way, if you don’t do the protein powders, it’s really hard. You got to get about 300 grams of carbohydrate as a minimum, if you’re gonna do it that way. And if you have Insulin resistance, or if you have any digestive issues, you’re gonna have to do a lot of legumes, and there’s gonna be a lot of lectins in there and a lot of potential mineral and protein disruptors there. That’s why, you know, Beano is such a popular supplement to break down beans because a lot of those foods require a lot of enzymes to break it down. It can be harder on your digestive system. Again, some people can do it. the question is, how do we differentiate why can some people do it, and it’s– a lot of it has to do with Insulin resistance, right? The more Insulin-resistant you are, the better you’re gonna with meat because you can get a whole bunch of proteins and fats without the whole bunch of carbohydrates too. [crosstalk] And it’s very nutrient-dense. I mean, there’s a lot of B Vitamins in meat. If you look at the top B Vitamin foods, they’re gonna be meats. And we just talked about B Vitamins: how important they are for Chronic Fatigue. Fish, meats, pork, they’re gonna be really high in B Vitamins. Also, nuts and seeds will be right behind there too. So, that’s kind of a good take home.

Evan Brand: Let’s chat about Labs for a minute. I mean, I mentioned like, some of the thyroid markers.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Evan Brand: What are you seeing on paper for people with chronic fatigue? How would we break this down? I hit like reverse T3 about– What else is gonna show up?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, so when we look at chronic fatigue, there’s three things on the hormone mitochondria side we want to look at: we want to look at the adrenals, we want to look at thyroid, both of those together. Right? So, making sure there’s adequate T4 to T3 conversion on the thyroids item. Making sure you’re reverse T3 levels aren’t going too high. Number 1, looking at the adrenal side of the fence, so making sure Cortisol’s not too high or too low. And typically, you know, the more chronic the adrenal dysfunction is, the lower the DHEA sulfate will be as well. So making sure the adrenal components could– also the rhythm, right? Cortisol should be having a downward slope throughout the day. And a lot of people, they almost get kind of reversed as the adrenal dysfunction gets worse. And the problem with that is, it tends to significantly – it tends to significantly mess up sleep patterns, right?

Evan Brand: Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Sleep can do…

Evan Brand: Let me.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: …bad health.

Evan Brand: Let me restate that just so people understand what you’re saying. So, when you’re try to med a reverse pattern, what we’re gonna see on your saliva test, will be low, depressed morning levels, but then we’ll see an elevated level of Cortisol in the evening. [crosstalk] So, you’re exhausted in the morning, but you’re also wired and tired at night. So, you can’t sleep yet you don’t feel rested in the morning. We see that a lot, and we’ve done videos and podcast on a specific topic, but a lot of times, it’s due to some type of stress, like an argument at dinner, or someone’s doing bluelight at night. You know, even just a tiny amount of blue light from your phones, your tablets, etc., can crank up Cortisol. And you can fix it, with the lifestyle strategy and there’s herbs you can use to lower evening Cortisol, like Relora. We’ve chatted about that before.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Evan Brand: And like the Magnolia bar, can some of that…

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, and I’m just doing so. My supplementation right now is doing some adaptogenic herbs.

Evan Brand: Yeah, what did you take?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I’ve just taken my Adrenal Revive, which has Rhodiola-Ginseng-Ashwagandha combo. And then I would just take in some amino acid and some mitochondrial support. Just to make sure I am revved up in that maximum potential. And, this morning, I had three hard-boiled eggs. I had two pieces of bacon, and then I had some coffee with butter and MCT and 15 grams of Collagen peptides. That’s kind of my day so far. And little workout actions, I’m feeling good. So, just kind of reader in what you said, we have the adrenals, we have the thyroid, we have the mitochondria component, and the mitochondria is the B Vitamins. That’s the CoQ10. That may be extra Ribose. That may be extra Carnitine. That may be some of your Krebs cycle, intermediary compounds, like Fumerate and Malate and Succinate. So these are all really important things that can help the adrenals that I mentioned, the thyroid and the mitochondria. So, all three of those needs to be looked at. So, my analogy is for energy, the adrenals are what shifts the gears. So, if you’re from first gear to second gear, second to third, third to fourth, that’s like a standard kind of transmission, right? You shift the gears. You go up, you go fourth to fifth gear. Now you’re at highway speed, right? As you shift the gears up, that’s you generating energy so you can deal with and meet the stress, right? That’s a faster speed. You downshift so you can relax and calm down and control your nervous system. Those are like adaptogenic herbs. That’s like GABA. Here’s some GABA right now. I’m doing a little downshift action if you will. So that’s upshift and downshift. That’s the adrenals. That is your body being able to meet the demands of stress and be able to calm down from the demands of stress. That’s adrenals. Two is thyroid. That’s your resting engine tone, right? You put that car in neutral. Let’s say it’s around 700 rpm on a normal day. Maybe on a cold day, it’s 1200 to 1400, right, because the engine’s really cold. It’s got to generate more heat. So that resting engine tone, that’s the thyroid. I think of the mitochondria as the gasoline and the lubricant that’s in the car, right. It’s the engine. It’s the oil in the engine. It’s the gasoline in the tank. It’s the fluid in the car, whether it’s wiper fluid revrols. It’s the internal fluids that help that car to run. So, thyroid is resting engine tone, right? And we know what happens if the engine tones too low, the car stalls out too, right?

Evan Brand: Exactly.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So, if it goes too low, you stall out. That’s like hypothyroid, right? You’re stalling out because you’re getting tired. You’re getting fatigue. You’re getting cold. So, let me go back. Number one is gonna be your adrenals that’s being able to upregulate or downregulate stress. Number two is your thyroid. That’s your resting metabolism, your resting engine tone, right. Too high, you burn up. Too low, you stall out. Number three is the fluids and the internal fuel in the car, right? The gasoline, the oil, all the fluids to help that car run. So, that’s kind of my analogy on the metabolic side of energy and chronic fatigue. We ca go a little bit deeper in, next.

Evan Brand: Yeah, yeah. Well– well said. I love your analogies. I think there’s been a few recent podcasts where I’ve not heard your analogies. So I’m glad that you’re ripping those out. Let’s chat about now, we hit on Anemias. We hit on kind of the three-body system approach to this whole thing. Let’s talk about the other factor. We hit on blood sugar already. Let’s talk about heavy metals, Lyme disease, Epstein-Barr. You know, some of these underlying…

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Evan Brand: …that could be driving the adrenal-thyroid detox problem issues. Mitochondria [crosstalk] issues. A lot of times they go unaddressed. Now, there’s some people out there that their whole business model’s wrapped around, like, one piece of the puzzle, like, methylation, which is a factor, but it’s not…

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: [inaudible] …your Lyme.

Evan Brand: But it’s just a factor, right? I mean, when Justin and I are working with people, we’re never just saying, “Look. This is your one thing. There’s never one thing that broke you and there’s not one thing that’s gonna fix you. It’s always a combination of these factors. So, if you had a diagnosis of like Epstein-Barr, or Lyme, or mycoplasma or cytomegalovirus, or these other infections, or heavy metals. Somebody says, “Oh. You’re toxic with Mercury or Lead.” You know, yes, those issues have to be addressed, but they’re not gonna be 95 percent of the problem. They’re gonna be a piece. Now, what percent of the pie? We don’t know, right? Because it depends on like Justin said, your diet. What kind of diet are you following? What’s your stress load? How many hours are you working per week? How well are you sleeping? What’s your EMF exposure? What’s your exercise exposure? What’s your light environment? Are you actually getting bright sunlight in the morning, and you’re kindling down and you’re not using artificial light in the evening, right? All these factors will pile on top of Lyme, heavy metals, Epstein-Barr, mono, etc., and that can make you or break you.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hundred percent. And of course, the diet to be there because inflammation – one of the major factors of inflammation’s gonna be through your food, right? So, making sure the foods dialed in. again, that’s anti-inflammatory nutrient-dense low toxin. Our approach is gonna be kind of a Paleo Template. That’s macronutrient gnostic, so getting the protein fat and carbs right and dialed-in for you, for your metabolism, and for what you can actually digest. Because some people had a hard time with the whole food component because it has – it involves digestion. And if that’s not good, we have to make some modifications there. And that dub tails into the next component, which is digestion, because if we have problems digesting food, that’s where all the nutrients come into our body. So, if we can’t break that down, that’s an issue. And not breaking down foods actually creates a stress in the body. So, if we can’t break down the foods, then the foods ferment, putrefy and rancidify in the gut, and create more stress and more bloating. And then, if we get really stressed and we have a hard time evacuating our bowels or moving our bowels, right, it may get more in the constipated side and then we start getting this auto-intoxication phenomenon where we start reabsorbing a lot of the toxins that are in our stool. Right? That’s not good either, right? We’re literally drowning ourselves in our own toxins. So, that component’s there. And then, we need the enzymes and Hydrochloric acid and we know that’s important and stress affects that, right, because the more stressed we are, the more the sympathetic nervous system decreases enzymes and decreases acids. Also, infections, right? All of these things interplay because the more stressed we are, the more digestion’s poor. Infections can come in, and infections amplify all of the things that we’re talking about. And infections then create more leaky gut action, right, where the tight junctions in the Epithelium lining open up and then more of those compounds in our gut get into our blood. And then our immune system interacts with them more, which then creates more immune stress. And your immune system is 70-80 percent in your gut, so the immune system always being active, it will really suck up a lot of your energy. That’s why when you get sick and you have like a flu or a cold, you’re really tired. You’re not tired because of the virus, you’re tired because of the immune system allocating resources to kill the virus. So, if your immune system is always upregulated, it will suck a lot of energy from you.

Evan Brand: How about gluten, as a simple immune stress?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yep. That’s why cutting gluten out can really improve people’s energy because number one, it’s gonna create gut inflammation if you’re gluten-sensitive, which a lot of people are. Number two, you know, unless you’re eating the best kinds of grains, there’s still gonna be a lot of Round-up and glyphosate and chemicals and lectins and gut irritants in there, even if the gluten component’s not a problem. So, that may drive more leaky gut, which then creates this more immune reactivation, upregulation, which then starts to suck energy out just like when you get sick from a coal.

Evan Brand: Well said. I want to circle back to couple things you mentioned about malabsorption digestive problems. People may want to know how do we quantify that? Well, you know, our philosophy’s “Always test. Don’t guess,” So, like when we’re looking at a stool test for someone, we can look at secretory IGA, which is kind of that first line of defense against infections. Oftentimes, we’re gonna see that real low. In terms of stools, obviously, you can look at your stool, if it’s floating, you know you’re not digesting your fats. So, if you’re trying to implement a Paleo or a Ketogenic diet, and your stools are floating, we know you’re not digesting. But we can also measure it with Steatocrit, a fecal fat marker…

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Evan Brand: …which is important because we can track this stuff. So, people say, “What’s the value of testing? Can I just, you know, take all these supplements and do the diet?” You can, but eventually you’re gonna spin your wheels because you’ve got to have the diagnostic data to figure out what’s going on. I had a woman last week, who her gluten antibodies were above 400 and she told me she hadn’t eaten gluten in four years. And we know that the gluten antibodies can be elevated for six months, but not for four years. And so, I told her, “Look. There’s got to be some exposure if you promise me the diet’s clean. One lady I found had a chopstick she was using everyday with wheat germ oil on her chopstick. And that was causing her antibodies to go up, but for this lady, you know, I’m thinking it’s something with her skin care products. She said she loves wearing makeup. So, I’m guessing she’s got some gluten in her makeup somewhere. And that’s a stressor too. So, like even if you’re listening, like, “You know what. Justin, Evan, I’ve heard you guys a million times about the diet. I’ve already got a gluten-free diet. If you don’t test for your anti-gliadin antibodies, you’ll never know because these people that come to us and say they’ve been on the gluten-free diet for years, but they’ve still got issues like fatigue, boom! Now, we’ve got the Lab to prove it and we can see why.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hundred percent. Hundred percent. So, again, the gut component’s really important, and we know there are certain infections that– You now, we’re not gonna go into the treatment because we can do a podcast in each one.

Evan Brand: Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: We know things like H. pylori, Blasto, coarse Lyme, which is Borrelia burgdorferi. We know the co-infections of Lyme, like Babisia, Bartonella, Alexia, right? These are different things. Mycoplasma. Mycoplasma’s a big one with chronic fatigue. I think your wife had that at one point…

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I remember we treated that and your joint pain went down and your energy came back.

Evan Brand: That was scary. That was a scary time, I’ll tell you. So, infections, you know, I’ve got hands-on experience. You know, seeing my wife struggle like that with the infection piece, and she was definitely fatigued. A lot of times– maybe we should mention this. I’m sorry to interrupt you, but a lot of times with chronic fatigued there’s something else going on too, like depression, anxiety, insomnia, sleep issues.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Evan Brand: It’s not just chronic fatigue by itself. Fibromyalgia– so, usually it’s not an isolated issue, I found. Which means that more people should be listening. Because even if fatigue doesn’t apply, there could be other symptoms that are kind of complementary to this.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Fibromyalgia is intimately connected with chronic fatigue. Why? Because, your systems to regulate inflammation are also connected to energy. So, when your ability to generate energy goes down, your ability to resist inflammation or put the fire of inflammation out also goes down. So then, you get very easily sore. You kind of have central allodynia kind of thing where you’re– you know, if I were to just touch someone who has no chronic fatigue or Fibro like, like this, it’s not a problem right? But then, their nervous system is proceeding that as like I’m punching them at full strength, right? So, it’s just hyper upregulation of the nervous system, and also the inability to regulate inflammation. So, the smallest things create a fire, if they will.

Evan Brand: So, it sounds like it’s everything. It’s not just a nervous system like you mentioned, but you’re saying it will be the immune system at play here too.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, yeah. And then you have the Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, which is the European term for chronic fatigue, right? So, the Myalgic Encephalomyelitis is the other one. So, we talked about the infections, right? H. pylori, Lyme, all the Lyme, co-infections…

Evan Brand: Parasites.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: …parasites, Yersinia. These are gonna be big. And again, the reason why they could be so big, is because of the immune activation, number one. Number two, because of the leaky gut, which then exacerbates the immune activation. Number three, the impaired digestion, right? The impaired digestion which means Hydrochloric acid and enzymes drop. And then number four, it’s gonna effect the gut bacterial balance in the gut, right? More bad bacteria than good.

Evan Brand: Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right? Just like when there’s sharks in the water, the sharks got all these little kinds of things sticking to its underbelly. They try to get a free ride, right?

Evan Brand: Exactly.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: But when there’s parasites there, you get those kinds of things. They try to get a free ride as well, i.e. dysbiotic bacteria, and then, these things are gonna eat up more of your B Vitamins and more of your nutrients. And we know that more beneficial flora actually produces nutrition. So then, when you have that lack of beneficial flora, then you have lack of that input of really beneficial nutrients produced by them. And then also, beneficial probiotics produce more healthy acids that keep the environment in the gut uhm– let’s say, inhospitable for the bad guys.

Evan Brand: Yep. Yep. I’m glad you hit on the piece of them stealing your nutrients, and also the point about the dysbiotic flora is awesome. It’s like your powerplants. If you have a bad diet, but you’ve also got dysbiosis, I mean, I can’t think of a better combination if you wanted to create chronic fatigue and to wipe out all the good guys. So also, you know, maybe this is worth mentioning. Antibiotics too. I mean, we’ve seen people with chronic fatigue that it happened after a round of antibiotics to the point where some people are almost wheelchair-bound or bed-ridden due to massive rounds of antibiotics, especially someone, let’s say, they got a Lyme diagnosis. They start doing a bunch of antibiotics, then their chronic fatigue due to everything going on. They’ve just destroyed themselves.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. Hundred percent. And again, there are studies about bacterial cidal antibiotics induce mitochondrial dysfunction, right? And I’ll pull up a study here and we’ll go through at least the conclusion part. And we’ll put the references on below. But I have a study here on mitochondria and antibiotics, and I have a study here on the mitochondrial dysfunction in heavy metals. Because we know heavy metals are a really important component. We get exposed to them in our environment. It takes nutrients to detoxify from heavy metals. So, if we have poor nutritional issues because we’re not eating good foods or we’re not digesting those foods, then all those amino acids and healthy sulfur-based minerals aren’t gonna be utilized for phase I and phase II detoxification as well.

Evan Brand: Yep. Well said. I’ll also add in occupational exposure of heavy metals too. I was working last week with a female in her 70’s, a retired dentist, and I said, “What’s your exposure to mercury over your lifetime?” And she laughed and she said, “Oh, Evan, you know, back in the 50’s,” She said, “I was putting Mercury in my hands to show the kids all the things you can do with it.” So, who knows how toxic she is. We’ve not tested her, you know, quite yet. But, I mean, dentist? What else would be toxic occupations you would say? I would say anybody who’s working on a ramp, like at an airport, people that are outside breathing in jet fuel all the time. We’ve got…

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Chemiist. Potentially, Chemist, those people. I would say, the big one I think is a lot of people that are doing a lot of lone care work.

Evan Brand: Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Their spraying a lot of pesticides or chemicals or glyphosate, right? So, a lot of potential things and they’re getting exposed to, and a lot of times, they aren’t going to the proper precautions regarding exposure. They’re just uneducated about it.

Evan Brand: Right. And I think we hit on this. Maybe not on this episode but as we know, glyphosate damages mitochondria too. So, you just brought up a study about antibiotics. We know glyphosate does the same. So, if you’re not eating an organic diet, I mean, it’s gonna be tough to get you out of this whole. What about– Let’s see. I mean it’s not too common anymore, but people who work in like a toll booth all day, where there’s cars, or a drive-through. People who work in, you know, say Starbucks. You are working at the drive-through. You’ve got these cars pumping out exhaust fumes. They’re breathing in that stuff in all day. I think all the guys at UPS that worked out on the ramp. You know, the meal of the night when you’ve got these big planes, just putting out tons and tons of jet fumes.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s really tough. Yeah. And I know we see a lot– I know you run a lot of the GPL-TOX Screens and you see a lot of benzene and a lot of, basically, by-products from gasoline metabolism, right?

Evan Brand: Yeah. Yep. That and also, thanks from groundwater contamination too. So, people that are drinking from well water but they say, “Oh, I had it tested 20 years ago.” It’s like, well, fracking and a lot of other industries have destroyed a lot of our groundwater, so you got to make sure that you’re filtering your water too. If you don’t have a good clean water source, that could be another source of your fatigue.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, yeah. I kind of on the fence about fracking. I’ve seen some of the documentaries on them, but I also have some family and friends that live in areas where they have to have water, you know, uhm– basically, trucked in, right? Because the water that they have is so bad. But I’ve also heard from other people that these people, you know, had lots of problems with their water even before fracking. So, I’m kind of the fence about that, but anytime we’re putting toxins into the water supply and we don’t have the ability to filter it out, that’s always really a concern, for sure.

Evan Brand: Yeah, so I guess, maybe we’re kind of all over the place, but we’re really not because we’re building a complete picture of all these different sources. I mean, even Fluoride, for example, if you’re drinking Fluoridated tap water, we know that that’s gonna block some of the thyroid functions. So, if you’ve got Hypothyroidism or you’ve got autoimmune Hashimoto’s…

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally.

Evan Brand: …I mean, that could be a source too. So, I use a fluoride filter to remove all that from my water. Because here in Louisville, even though the water’s great tasting, it’s naturally filtered through our limestone, all of our caves here, but still they add Fluoride at the very last step before they send it out to the taps. Which hopefully, there will be a day where that is not the case.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, then they study over in the UK, where they looked at certain towns or sections of areas that have Fluoridation and certain areas that don’t. And they saw an increase in Hypothyroidism in the areas where there was more Fluoridation. So, there’s a correlation with more Fluoride equaling more Hypothyroidism. And that makes sense because Fluoride’s a halide, therefore it can pinch-hit into that Iodine receptor, which is really important for that iodination process of making thyroid hormones. What makes sense why Fluoride could affect that iodination process, for sure.

Evan Brand: Yeah. there was a Chines study too. I’m sure you saw this one, about IQ being lower.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. It’s like seven of ten points. I mean, this is why I’ve invested in two filters in my house. I have a whole house filtered. That’s a carbon-based filter. And then I have one that is a reverse osmosis filter just for the countertop. So I have one that’s whole house, which filters about 50-75 percent of the Fluoride, and then another one that’s countertop. So, that way, the water, like I’m drinking now, is gonna be a hundred percent clean. Now, the one of the Fluorides we have, it actually adds back some of the good minerals, one of those filters. And they also have a trace mineral supplement that I leave right next to the water filter. So, that could take a couple of drops of some minerals where I have some really good sea salt I just sprinkle in. That way, I get the minerals back in too. I always tell people, like, I just– you know, people are like, “Oh. It’s gonna take away all your minerals.” I was like, “Yeah. But what I rather have less minerals and just add them back in or more toxins than I’m exposing myself to.

Evan Brand: Exactly.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Because I can always just add some good minerals back in with the Trace Mineral Support that costs like five or ten bucks…

Evan Brand: Exactly. Yep, and – or using your good Redmond salt or your real salt, your Celtic salts, I mean, you can replace minerals. I agree much more easily than just saying…

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: [inaudible] toxins.

Evan Brand: Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally.

Evan Brand: Glyphosate. I mean, parts per billion is bioactive so–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. So that’s why double filter, just to be on the safe side.

Evan Brand: I like that approach. So, when you move it won’t be too difficult. Those are pretty easy systems to install in, who knows

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. I mean, typically, I think I had a plumber come in for 200 bucks. He installed both of them. [crosstalk] Pretty simple.

Evan Brand: Nice.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup, exactly. Now I have a couple studies here I want to kind of dive in. There’s one right here. It’s by the Journal Scientific Translational Medicine 2013. It’s called “Bacterial Cidal Antibiotics Induce Mitochondrial Dysfunction and Oxidative Damage in Mammalian Cells.” Studies on mice, just so you know. It may not correlate a hundred percent but it just gives you some good kind of ideas of why were, you know, trying to only use antibiotics, for like, last case scenarios, but it says that– It’s in the abstract. We demonstrated these bacterial cidal antibiotics induce effects that lead to oxidative damage to DNA, to proteins, and to the cell membranes. Mice treated with bacterial cidal antibiotics exhibited elevated oxidative stress. Markers in the blood, oxidative tissue damage, and upregulated expression of key genes involved in antioxidant defense mechanism, which point to the potential physiological relevance of these antibiotic effects. Now, here’s the interesting thing. What they’re saying is more oxidative damage. What’s oxidation? Oxidation’s when you lose an electron, okay? What does that mean in real life? Cut an apple in half. Watch it start turning brown in front of you. That’s oxidation. Leave a nail out in the rain. It comes back rusty. That’s oxidation. So, what happens in your body, is you have oxidation at the tissue and cellular level. Now that causes more antioxidants, right, which give off an electron to help prevent that tissue from oxidizing or essentially going bad. So, it takes a lot of nutrients out of that reserve to prevent this oxidation from happening.

Evan Brand: Wow. And now– [crosstalk] I also [inaudible] something about the gene…

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hold that thought, one second. I want to just dog tail this with the last sentence because it’s – there’s a lot of stuff here. I don’t want to lose track. Give me one last second. [breathes] Now it says, “The deleterious effects of bactericidal antibiotics were alleviated in cell culture and of mice when they administered antioxidants of N-acetyl-L-cysteine, which prevented the preferential bacteriostatic antibiotic deleterious effects so by giving that extra antioxidants and sulfur amino acids. It actually neutralizes the negative effects that happen. Sorry about that. All yours.

Evan Brand: You’re good. Well, you mentioned the word genetic too. You said in that– in that abstract there that some genes were either turned on or turned off that helped to bring on any oxidants. So that’s crazy too. You’re actually affecting things at a genetic level with antibiotics.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. Any other comments on that though?

Evan Brand: Well…

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: About the nutrients kind of help into alleviate some of that.

Evan Brand: Once I wonder is that gonna turn on or reverse whatever happened to the gene as well. You think it will?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, I mean, if we’re talking about epigenetics, so I imagine, “Yeah it’s gonna have an epigenetic effect for sure.

Evan Brand: Cool.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Everything we do has a genetic effect. I mean, just sitting down and meditating for a few minutes will have an effect on your epigenome. The question is, do you do it enough? So, that switch kind of stays on or it’s just a temporary, you know, flicker if you will.

Evan Brand: Yup, exactly.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Now, one more study I want to get your take on as well. Now, this is talking about heavy metals, in particularly, Mercury. When we look at heavy metals, we’re kind of talking about Mercury, Lead, Arsenic, Cadmium and Aluminum. Those are the big ones for the most part. But in this study, they talk about– they talk about Mercury, and how it can accumulate in the Central Nervous System. It can impair physiological functions by disrupting your endocrine glands. What do you think he’s talking about there? Probably thyroid, probably adrenal, probably the HPATG-Axis. They talk about the most important mechanism by which Mercury causes toxicity appears to be Mitochondrial damage via the depletion of Glutathione, coupled with binding to thiol groups, which generate free radicals. Mercury has a high affinity to thiol, so that means you’re increasing free radicals. It’s also binding up a as an– high affinity to Selenium as well. They’re present in the amino acids. Cysteine– N-Acetylcysteine, again, we just talked about those in the last study too, so keep that in mind. Lipoic acids, proteins, enzymes, NAC, which are all precursors to Glutathione, which is among the most powerful intercellular antioxidants, right? Those have bind up and prevent the loss of electron. When you think antioxidant, think anti-electron loss, okay? Keep on going down the list here, “which among are the most powerful anti-cellular antioxidants available to redact against oxidative stress and DNA peroxidation, right? That’s the– basically, the outer– in the DNA, basically kind of uhm – coming bad if you will, right? When you have peroxidation, it’s like fats coming bad. You heat the fats up too much, you get all the peroxides, it goes bad. The consense of these methylthionines, Glutathione, Selenium and fish and high omega-3 fatty acids appear strongly related to the degree of which organic Mercury, and the protective detoxifying mechanism in human. The inclusion depletion of Glutathione, mitochondria increase lipid peroxidation and increase oxidative damage of proteins and DNA in the brain. So, let’s break that down. What did that say? It says Mercury – increased Mercury, is gonna cause more peroxidation, oxidation, right? That all just means damage. Think about that as damage. It’s gonna deplete a lot of those nutrients that help make Glutathione your master antioxidant, which include your sulfur meal acids, cysteine, glutamine, glycine, alpha lipoic acid. But it talks also about more of those nutrients, fish oil, glutathione, cysteine, Selenium, can also help, too, though. Again, you’d probably have to do it in a supplement form to get enough of a therapeutic level there.

Evan Brand: It was from American Journal Clinical Nutrition, and I’ve seen this actually on a piece of paper on Organic acid. So, I can confirm that this is accurate because I see it time and time again. Vitamin C elevates red blood cell glutathione levels and healthy adults. All it took, uhm– they had a course, placebo, and then they had 500-milligram dose, daily dose, of Vitamin C, and then they had 2000 milligram daily dose Vitamin C for four to five weeks. And that was enough to elevate glutathione levels by– let’s see. What the brains and the subjects. Some humans, they had eight percent more glutathione. Some had 84 percent more glutathione. Justin four to five weeks of supplementing with Vitamin C. And I’ve had people taking liposomal, like glutathione or reduced glutathione, they’re still depleted. Other organic acids, and then I’ll give them Vitamin C, and then the glutathione goes up better. SO, I almost don’t even push people into glutathione supplements because time and time again I see that their levels are still depleted. Like – Look, you could just supplement with Vitamin C and replenish it just as good, if not better. And it’s gonna be significantly cheaper in the long run too because Vitamin C is pennies on the dollar compared to glutathione.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: How much Vitamin C are you getting?

Evan Brand: I usually do about 2500 milligrams, personally. [crosstalk] I do about a teaspoon a day.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: …of three grams a day or so?

Evan Brand: Yeah. Give or take.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I typically only do glutathione for people that are having more chronic G– more chronic detoxification issues. And I think doing Vitamin C, which is always a good thing, because that’s always gonna help the adrenals too.

Evan Brand: Right. And it’s so cheap too. Like, liposomal glutathione. You could spend what, probably a hundred bucks a month if you wanted to on it.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I mean. It’s probably a little bit cheaper than that. I know Kroshay and his liposomal – you know, you do maybe two to four– maybe four to 8 pumps a day, so probably six years. So, yeah, it’s definitely more pricy but it just depends, right, on what’s going on and how sick the person is. The average person probably will be better with Vitamin C, but again more toxicity to glutathione may be something to add with the Vitamin C.

Evan Brand: Good. Good, well said.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: What are the things you want to add, Evan? I think we hit a lot of stuff. We put some research out. Then again, that study by me that I just talked about was the Review of Environmental Contaminants and Toxicology 2014…

Evan Brand: Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: …called Mercury Toxicity and Neuro Degenerative Effects. We’ll put the references to these studies in the reference section on our videos, so we’ll put it in there. You’ll see it there.

Evan Brand: Good. Yeah, I just sent you the study I was talking about too in case people want to read through. I think we hit a lot. We should probably wrap it up. I mean, we could…

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Wrap it up.

Evan Brand: …we could go for hours on this subject, and so we’ve hit on chronic fatigue but not maybe in these much details. So, uh– wrapping up, three-body system approach. It’s gonna recover so much. Adrenals, thyroid, gut, detox functions, mitochondrial. Get all those systems evaluated if you’ve not worked with a functional medicine practitioner before, you can guess and check, sure. You can take random supplements we mentioned, but your results will be limited. Get the testing done. Even if you just get the testing done, and then you want to go on your own journey to figure out what it says afterwards, go for it. But to me, the data has changed my life. I know it changed your life. It changed thousands and thousands of our clients and patients’ lives. So, for me, I like testing. I like to see the piece of paper. I like to see the needle move. Somebody says they feel better. We looked back at organics, “Oh my God! Look. Their Krebs cycle’s actually working now.” That’s cool.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Evan Brand: So…

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Again, up to a hundred percent. Is there any quick questions you wanted to answer by the listeners or do you feel like we hit a lot of them just on our rhythm here?

Evan Brand: I can pull it up. You want to read a couple off. I didn’t have…

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Evan Brand: …the question list in front of me.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. So, couple things here. From Sam, do you recommend a water softener with a reverse osmosis under the sink or a whole house filtration for home? Again, I would do both if you can, just because of the convenience of having, you know, like– at night, before I go to bed, I’ll grab a quick glass of water upstairs even though it’s not from my reverse osmosis. Well, it’s still really, really good. But 80-90 percent of my water’s coming from my countertop units, so I don’t feel that bad. Plus, it’s nice having– not having to buy shower filters for all the showers in the house. And, if you have gas they can just kind of drink water out of their faucet upstairs. So, I like the whole house, and I like the countertop. And, you know, really, when you factor it, it ends up being like maybe 150 a year, 100 a year. And if you factor what you pay on bottles of water, I mean, you’re paying that in probably every three to four months. Easy.

Evan Brand: Yup. I would use the softener– [crosstalk] So I used to live in Las Vegas. The water there is super hard. Even with the shower filter, you could see Calcium build up. And a lot of people, you know, even my Mom, had kidney stones from the water out there. So, for her, a water softener’s a game changer. I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s all the west coast, if it’s just Nevada, Utah, other states, but man, the water’s hard out there.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. It would totally depend, I think, on where your area is. So, I would uhm– more than like they’re just talk to the company that you’re gonna go with, because they probably have experienced dealing with the whole country as a whole. So, don’t know what areas that you probably need the water softener. And if you know, your water is very hard, then I would invest with the water softener component. I don’t have one but, if I needed one there’s an attachment that you can put on that would soften the water as well.

Evan Brand: Perfect. Perfect.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. And then, regarding infections, they can cause chronic fatigue in themselves because they can create a lot of toxins that can clog up that mitochondria. So, SIBO and infections can add to chronic fatigue just from the toxins, like yeast and the acetaldehyde that comes off the yeast. That can slow down the mitochondria too and create fatigue, as well.

Evan Brand: Yeah. I was fatigued when I had two parasites. I was definitely fatigued, and now my energy’s much, much better.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. And there’s a lot of mechanisms, right? Because – Is it because it’s affecting digestion? Is it because it’s affecting the immune system, which is sucking up energy? Is it because of the biotoxins that are affecting the mitochondria? So, like a lot of times, like, we don’t know exactly, like how much is causing what? But we just know, generally, that this tends to cause it, and here are the kind of mechanisms outline that we know which you can plug in and interplay and have a negative effect. But we’re not gonna know exactly what percentage. But, again, in the end it doesn’t matter if you get better.

Evan Brand: Right. No, it doesn’t. Jack, he asks, “Is AA good source for Vitamin C?” I don’t know what he’s talking about? Do you Justin?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh – AA, uh- [blows air]

Evan Brand: Ascorbic acid? I’m guessing.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, that’s got to be what he’s talking about. I mean, again, if you do Ascorbic acid, I like to have some of the Bioflavonoids, the Rutin, the Hesperidin, those kinds of things with it. Now, I like the buffered form of ascorbic acid, as well. With like, the Ester kind of in there, and like, some of the Potassium, Vitamin C, salts in there. So, yeah. I think it’s good but get some of the bioflavonoids in there with it.

Evan Brand: Yeah. And I– If you want the optimal, if you’re listening to us, you want to be the top 1 percent of health, I like to mix Ascorbates, where you can do like the Magnesium and Calcium Ascorbates mixed with Ascorbic acid. So, you’ve got kind of like, a Tri-effect of Ascorbates. That tends to work better. Ascorbic acid is the cheapest though. So, if you’re on a budget looking to get Vitamin C, yeah, that may cut it.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Yeah, I like good buffered Vitamin C as well, but yeah, I think it’s still really good. Just try to use a really good quality, a brand as well, GMO-free, all that’s great. And I think we kind of hit a lot of the other questions, I mean, a lot of people have all the questions that may be off topic. I don’t want to go too far off topic. But of course, you know, if we didn’t highlight enough diet, lifestyle, and sleep are gonna be foundational things. And if you’re not sleeping, we probably have to fix a lot of the hormone stuff. Like the Cortisol Rhythm component that will then help the sleep too.

Evan Brand: Yep, yep. You’re welcome, Jack. Thanks for asking question. If you guys have more questions, you can always email us. Contact Justin through his site, justinhealth.com. Contact me through my site, evanbrand.com. We always love questions and we love topic ideas too. So, if you guys have something that we haven’t covered that we need to, you know, we’re happy to – we’re happy to dive in. So, definitely, you could reach out to us at any time for questions and then for consults, too. Justin’s available. And you go to his site, Justinhealth.com. Book a call. We both work with people around the world, so wherever you’re listening, it doesn’t matter. We can get lab test across the entire ocean, to Europe, Australia, New Zealand. It doesn’t matter. And then, the good old United States, we work with thousands of people here. So, reach out justinhealth.com, evanbrand.com, and make sure to hit the thumbs up button on this video if you’re watching on YouTube.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, if you’re live, get it right now, guys. Give us some love. We’ll come back and we’ll do more of these videos, so give me some hearts or some thumbs up and a couple of shares and likes. We appreciate it. It energizes us, and it makes us want to come back, more frequently and drop more knowledge bombs.